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Wednesday, 25 November 2015

Writing Intentionally

Welcome to my blog. I hope you will enjoy and be encouraged by what I write here.

Let me introduce myself. I am a writer. I go by Anna, but some people might know me as Bria. I'm fairly new to writing. I was the girl who never enjoyed writing assignment very much. My parents were very surprised when I started writing. I was slightly less surprised, I'd given myself more time to get used to it. I honestly didn't tell them until after I'd been planning for several months.

It really started when I had a good idea. Before that I'd only thought of mixing up fairy-tales and a few other stories. Those ideas were not original at all. I did make up other stories in my head and play act them with my brothers, but I never thought of writing any of them down. They probably weren't that good anyway.

I thought I should start by explaining my motto/tagline. I'm going to do it one part at a time, probably posting once a week. I might have some extra posts occasionally though.

So writing intentionally, what do I mean by that? I don't mean that I always write exactly what I meant to, or that I write whenever I intend to. (I wish that was the case though) I mean that I write with an intention, a purpose.

I don't want to just be entertaining, I want to make people think deeper at the same time. I want to to show truth. By showing, not telling. I don't want to write another preachy story or an overdone allegory.

I'm going to share a quote from one of my favourite writing books, Story Trumps Structure by Steven James. This is a great book even if you outline your stories in detail. It has great insights in to many parts of writing. Chapter 20: Meaning, is simply amazing. The quote is from there.

"Propaganda is when a viewpoint is promoted regardless of truth. Art is when truth is rendered regardless of agenda. Art rips the veil away, revealing reality in a way we cannot ignore. It forces us to see the world as it is, to see ourselves as we truly are, and to embrace once again the deep actualities of human nature that we know but so easily forget. Within art, truth touches time, debate becomes irrelevant, and thematic summaries are unnecessary.

Every story happens within a distinctly moral universal. There may be immoral stories, but there are no amoral stories. They’re all told from a certain world view, from a specific perspective. Every story is based on perceptions of right and wrong, good and evil, life and death. They all come from a set of beliefs and assumptions about the world and about what matters.

Or, perhaps that nothing ultimately matters.

That God doesn't exist.

That he does.

That he’s in control.

That he’s not.

That he cares about you.

That he doesn't.

Do our choices really make a difference, or, at the end of the day, are our lives inconsequential in the big scheme of things? Will justice prevail, or is it an illusion? All of these questions and issues matter, and the views of the author will affect how they are approached.

There’s a difference between a story’s moral fabric and your own moral agenda. Strive to let your fiction depict the truth of the world as it really is, rather than how you wish it were.”

That is my goal. To present the moral truths of the world. Not necessarily the historical or physical facts. I am writing fantasy, but I'm not going to distort God's reality. At least that is my prayer. I know I'm not perfect. There is no way I could write a perfect book. But I will do my best. I certainly intend for it to be fun though. And or it to be different. I hope to make other people's live a least a little bit better in some way by my writing.

Also Matthew 12:36 says that we will have to give an account for every idle word spoken. I think that applies to written words too. They are much more permanent and spread far wider. So with God's help I will write well.

I'll be back here next Tuesday for a special post. and I may just have something else in between.

There you made it to the bottom of my first post. That wasn't too hard was it?